h0bbel.p0ggel.org

I just got a bottle of Whiskey from Paul-Michael Agapow and Joan (of Gallery fame)! Never heard of it before, but it has a way cool name.

Jon, Mark and Robbo`s The Smooth Sweeter One ;)
Thanks to both of you!

And, Paul-Michael it was very nice to meet you! Come back with Joan some time

Update: It has now been digested. Results here

Michael aka Schultmc in #gallery has written a transcript of badgerbadgerbadger.com fame for those (remotely) interested:
Badger lyrics!

Nice job! :)

The good guys behind the Yellowtip Webserver has released an updated package, to eleviate some of the issues in the initial 2.0 version. This means that it's time for me to update my review, and have another go at installing it.

Changes:
- After the installation is finished the user has to enter his own username and password that will be used as the default username and password for all installed packages, including phpMyAdmin.
- YTWS2.0.1 is now a pure independent installation. This means that if a user already had a different installation of Apache and MySQL on his computer, YTWS2.0.1 will not break that and can run independent from the other apache and mysql apps on different port numbers.
- Gallery 1.4.3pl1 is now included.
- We've solved a problen where the 'Program files' directory name was a problem for Gallery. It can now be installed in a directory with spaces in the name without any problems (that we know of).
- MySql 4.0.18 is now included which should solve some weird installation problems on Win2K computers.

So far it's looking gooood! Smoth installer, nice setup. The issues Gallery had in the previous version seems to be resolved, and I was succesfull in installing and uploading pictures straight away.
The new password feature is neat, as it lets you set a common password for all installed components, and there is no default password to worry about anymore.

I have one small issue though, during installation the YellowTip installer shows the license for
Apache, PHP, MySQL, phpMyAdmin, Zend Optimizer, and YellowTip Reservations, and thats fine, but the Gallery license should also be shown there amongst the rest. YellowTip has not removed the license file from the Gallery distribution, so I'm certain that this is an oversight on their part.

Update 12.06.2004: The Gallery license is now displayed along with the others in Yellowtip Webserver 2.0.2

I also have one suggestion to the YellowTip guys: Add option to install Gallery as a module in PostNuke. After all, if you install both PostNuke and Gallery using YellowTip, you most likely want to run Gallery as a module in PostNuke? Perhaps add an option to the installer so you can install Gallery directly into the modules/ dir of PostNuke and get them integrated from the getgo?

I did a basic install with only Gallery selected as a module

Filename: YellowTipWS2.exe
Package size: 19 227 692 bytes
Url: http://www.yellowtip.com/ (Need to register to download)

Total install time: 8 minutes in my VMWare virtual machine.

On the 29th of April 2004, YellowTip Web Server 2.0 was released, and Gallery was included in the standard installation, along with PHP, MySQL, Zend Optimizer, phpMyAdmin, PostNuke, phpBB, and b2evolution.

My initial thoughts when going through a stock YellowTip Web Server 2.0 install:

The install went without hickups, but as soon as i tried uploading photos to the Gallery installation, I ran into problems

I enabled debug mode, tried another upload

As you can see, the NetPBM binaries are (by default) placed in a path with spaces, which is a big no-no.
I tried moving them to c:\netpbm, and updating the config, and that worked fine.
This is sort of a deal-breaker, since not being able to upload pictures puts Gallery in a pretty useless state. That being said, the fix is an easy one!

So, the conclusion is, Yellow Tip's Gallery integration still has a way to go before it's Gallery install is seamless, but the package itself seems like a good deal.

Note! I've not tested the other packages included, so my "review" is solely based on the experience I have with Gallery.

More screenshots of the install process, is available here

I've grown a bit tired of running about installing software and maintaing software versions on desktop computers. So, it's time to put Active Directory and Windows Installer technology to the test.

These consepts are not new to me, nor should they be to you, but this time i'm designing a whole network of about 100 workstations and a pletora of applications based on automated installation, self-healing and centralized managament. This combined with Citrix Metaframe Presentation Server, and it's published applications, should prove to be a very well managed solution. In combination with Group Policies and a pretty generic standard workstation image, I hope to make installation of new workstations a very simple and automated task. With the use of Microsoft Software Update Services patch management is suddenly a pretty easy task as well. I can't wait for SUS 2.0 to arrive though, since it will also be able to patch some applications as well, not just the base OS.

So far i've only done some initial testing with an automated Active Directory / MSI installation of the Citrix Program Neigborhood agent, and it really works well so far. The initial feeling is that the Program Neighborhood Agent 8.0 is really comming along nicely. Way to go Citrix! If you are running a Citrix based solution, and haven't checked it out yet, now is the time to do so!

Basically what I have done in my VMWare based lab-environment, is to auto-deploy the Program Neighborhood Agent is a breeze, and autoconfiguring it to publish the applications to the end-users start-menu and/or desktop is very easy to accomplish.

Packaging the other applications involved will probably be a much larger task, as most of them don't come in native MSI format from the vendors. Some applications like Adobe Acrobat Reader IS available as .msi files, even it it doesn't seem that way when you download it. It's downloadable form is a .exe file, and no .msi - The trick is to start the install process, and then check your %temp% dir. There it is, the hidden .msi file. :)

As always, I try to minimize licensing costs, so I'm currently looking into free/open source applications that can help me build the packages I need. So far MakeMSI seems like a good candidate.

There are som exellent MSI resources on the web, so Google!

I'll keep you posted as this pans out...